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Seoul, South Korea (CNN) -- South Korean President Lee Myung-bak announced Monday his country is suspending trade with North Korea, closing its waters to the North's ships and adopting a newly aggressive military posture after the sinking of a South Korean warship.

"We have always tolerated North Korea's brutality, time and again," Lee said. "We did so because we have always had a genuine longing for peace on the Korean Peninsula. But now things are different."

"North Korea will pay a price corresponding to its provocative acts," he said, according to an English translation of the speech provided by Lee's office. "I will continue to take stern measures to hold the North accountable."

The White House issued a statement Monday supporting South Korea's measures, saying they were "called for and entirely appropriate."

"Specifically, we endorse President Lee's demand that North Korea immediately apologize and punish those responsible for the attack, and, most importantly, stop its belligerent and threatening behavior," the White House statement said.

"U.S. support for South Korea's defense is unequivocal, and the President has directed his military commanders to coordinate closely with their Republic of Korea counterparts to ensure readiness and to deter future aggression."

The result in hand is crystal clear. Personally I was hoping to have my first duty station be Okinawa. Time will tell.

With North Korea rattling its sabers (and the memory of how the Japanese recruited "comfort women" during WWII still fresh), I'd say that it's a bad time to be closing down a base that is that good a staging area for a second Korean conflict.

With North Korea rattling its sabers (and the memory of how the Japanese recruited "comfort women" during WWII still fresh), I'd say that it's a bad time to be closing down a base that is that good a staging area for a second Korean conflict.

Major, a question.

Granted the supply lines are extended, but would, or would not, a revised version of REFORGER be the most effective backup plan?

Granted the supply lines are extended, but would, or would not, a revised version of REFORGER be the most effective backup plan?

It would be heavily modified, since REFORGER is "REturn of FORces to GERmany." :D

Seriously, if we suddenly found ourselves in a Korean scenario, I'm not sure how much we'd be able to intervene. The old plan of being able to fight in two simultaneous theaters was downgraded under Clinton to being able to fight in one theater and do a holding action in another. With the current ongoing operations, even that might be a stretch. Our air and sealift capabilities are maxed out and we lack a lot of the heavy armor and artillery units that we used to have. Also, the Korean fight would probably go very quickly. The North would launch everything that they had in their first strike, maul the South (and Japan, and possibly even Australia and Hawaii) and then brace itself for the inevitable counterattack, which would overwhelm them in a few weeks. We'd probably end up fighting with whatever assets we have in theater, and any follow-on forces would be relief for the ones who'd be occupying a destroyed North.

t would be heavily modified, since REFORGER is "REturn of FORces to GERmany." :D

I know. I was discussing the contingency and the fact that an existing plan is already in place for this kind of rapid deployment.

Seriously, if we suddenly found ourselves in a Korean scenario, I'm not sure how much we'd be able to intervene. The old plan of being able to fight in two simultaneous theaters was downgraded under Clinton to being able to fight in one theater and do a holding action in another. With the current ongoing operations, even that might be a stretch. Our air and sealift capabilities are maxed out and we lack a lot of the heavy armor and artillery units that we used to have. Also, the Korean fight would probably go very quickly. The North would launch everything that they had in their first strike, maul the South (and Japan, and possibly even Australia and Hawaii) and then brace itself for the inevitable counterattack, which would overwhelm them in a few weeks. We'd probably end up fighting with whatever assets we have in theater, and any follow-on forces would be relief for the ones who'd be occupying a destroyed North.

Our airlift assets aren't as tapped as you might think. We'd be close to it if war goes down, but we're far from tapped right now. My unit alone controls and supports roughly 400 Airlift aircraft, and it's maybe a 50/50 for OCO and non-OCO missions. I'm sure our sea lift capabilities have plenty of room to play with as well.

Not sure how recently you've been in the theatre Maj, but they made us review the OPLAN every so often when I was there (year and a half ago now), and I have little doubt that we've have plenty of assets that could be there within a week.

I'm sure our air combat assets in theatre would be enough to handle N. Korea though. Two F-15 wings, an F-16 Wing that specializes in Wild Weasel missions, several mixed wings with F-16's and A-10's, and I believe 2 F-22 squadrons. Then we've got the deployed bombers that are stationed at Guam. And thats just the AF assets. I'm not sure how many combat aircraft the Navy and Marines could bring to the fight.

Last edited by djones520; 05-25-2010 at 05:59 PM.

In most sports, cold-cocking an opposing player repeatedly in the face with a series of gigantic Slovakian uppercuts would get you a multi-game suspension without pay.

In hockey, it means you have to sit in the penalty box for five minutes.

Do you think it is right and doable by the US to be a major party in an upcoming conflict? If the US and the UN (preferably other forces such as russia and the EU) flexes their muscles enough to keep china out of it then maybe it would be for the best to leave most of this conflict to the south koreans.

Perhaps I have misunderstood the condition of the PRNK but as far as I know they are basicly reliant on foreign aid for food. How the hell are they supposed to wage war against the south koreans, who have a well trained, well motivated, well equipped defense force with the possibility of strong supply lines.

I actually believe that if the north invaded the south starvation would wipe out/cause rebellion in large parts of the northern civilian population while the purely military losses would be unfathomably unproportional in comparison to any territorial or tactical advances.

From what little I know of this, the south wouldn't go unscathed through the conflict but the north would be obliterated partly by the weapons of the south, partly by reality and the domino effect.

If it could be avoided, wouldn't it be better if the US saved it's tax dollars and sorted out the conflicts it's already entangled in?

Edit: Besides, I don't think China would like to go to world war to protect that filthy concentration camp, sure it's an important buffert state but it's not much of an object of communist pride that North Korea is still barely alive. I could see that china would install a puppet regime of its own, which could be beneficial for "us" as well. Germany is still plagued by the inequalities between west germany and DDR even though the differences between the two states were marginal compared to the huge gap between the progressive, high tech, free, culturally thriving (starcraft!) economically gigantic south and the tragic, starving, dead north.